"A member of one of our classes told of a request made by his wife. She and a group of other women in her church were involved in a self-improvement program. She asked her husband to help her by listing six things he believed she could do to help herself become a better wife. He reported to the class, “I was surprised by such a request. Frankly, it would have been easy for me to list six things I would like to change about her—my heavens, she could have listed a thousand things she would like to change about me—but I didn’t. I said to her, ‘Let me think about it and give you an answer in the morning.’“The next morning I got up very early and called the florist and had them send six red roses to my wife with a note saying: ‘I can’t think of six things I would like to change about you. I love you the way you are.’“When I arrived at home that evening, who do you think greeted me at the door: That’s right. My wife! She was almost in tears. Needless to say, I was extremely glad I had not criticized her as she had requested.“The following Sunday at church, after she had reported the results of her assignment, several women with whom she had been studying came up to me and said, ‘That was the most considerate thing I have ever heard.’ It was then I realized the power of appreciation.”"

How To Win Friends & Influence PeopleDALE CARNEGIE

When a study was made a few years ago on runaway wives, what do you think was discovered to be the main reason wives ran away? It was “lack of appreciation”. And I’d bet that a similar study made of runaway husbands would come out the same way. We often take our spouses so much for granted that we never let them know we appreciate them.

Sincere appreciation was one of the secrets of the first John D. Rockefeller’s success in handling men. For example, when one of his partners, Edward T. Bedford, lost a million dollars for the firm by a bad buy in South America, John D. might have criticized; but he knew Bedford had done his best, and the incident was closed. So Rockefeller found something to praise; he congratulated Bedford because he had been able to save 60 percent of the money he had invested. “That’s splendid,” said Rockefeller. “We don’t always do as well as that upstairs.”

There was a young man in the Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on the country roads where they were sure to be found. One of these letters aroused resentments that burned for a lifetime.Even after he had become a practicing lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly in letters published in the newspapers. But he did this just once too often.In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by the name of James Shields. he lambasted him through an anonymous letter published in Springfield Journal. The town roared with laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation.Shields found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after him, and challenged him to fight a duel. that man didn’t want to fight. He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn’t get out of it and save his honor. He was given the choice of weapons. Since he had very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the appointed day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River, prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped the duel.

That was the most lurid personal incident in his life. It taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people. Never again did he write an insulting letter. Never again did he ridicule anyone. And from that time on, he almost never criticized anybody for anything.

The man was the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen.....Abraham Lincoln

B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned...........

Once upon a time there was a young man who used to meditate all day about the meaning of life. Most of the time he was pondering about the most important thing in life, because he thought the gravity of important issues could more easily lead people beyond the exterior of existence, and disclose to them the reason of things.

No matter how long he meditated and observed, he could get no result. To clear his doubts, he decided to go and see an old sage, who lived alone in a far away forest.

When he finally met the old man, the sage asked him what brought him there. The young man replied he was searching for the most precious deed one person could do to get close to God.

“What did you do on your way here?”asked the sage.

The young man thought he did not get the question, and repeated his demand.

Then the sage asked again: “What did you do on your way here?”

“I toiled,”said the young man, “because the road up the hill was very steep. I gasped and felt very thirsty. But I made an effort to patiently endure that troubled walking.”

“What did you do next?”

“I meditated, as I do every day. Today I pondered about imperturbability, that can be both a virtue and a fault.”

“What did you do next?”

“I helped an old man by taking his bundle of wood to his place. This meant a long detour on my route, but he was too weak for that burden.”

“What did you do next?”

The young man hesitated, then admitted: “I sat on a stone for a moment, and played with a marble that my father gave me when I left school. I apologize for wasting my time like that.”

“What action made you feel lighter?”asked the old man.

The young man, puzzled, looked at the sage. “Please answer my question”, the young man said, “I came to you with a demand.”

The sage repeated, as if he had not heard this last objection: “What action made you feel lighter?”

“Playing with the marble,”said the confused young man, “I was really free and happy; I had no thoughts – no worries.”

“That was the best time today,”said the sage, “when you yielded to play.”"Play is a light yet serious activity, because then God is near you. You go beyond the surface of existence in the very same moment as you rise above it.”

Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.

"When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn't make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story."However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had used a Hawaiian healing process called ho'oponopono. I had never heard of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at all true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.

Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of totalresponsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does--but that's wrong.

"The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist.

He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years.

That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.

Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

"Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"'After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely,' he told me. 'Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed.' I was in awe. Not only that,' he went on, 'but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.

Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.'

"This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: 'What were you doing within yourself that caused those people to change?'

"'I was simply healing the part of me that created them,' he said. I didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is your creation.

"Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projectionsfrom inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you.

"I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live. Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr. Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho'oponopono means loving yourself.

"If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.

"I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing,exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"'I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again,' he explained.

"That's it?

"That's it.

"Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.

"Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who sent the nasty message.

"This time, I decided to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you,' I didn't say it to anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was creating the outer circumstance.

"Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by saying 'I love you,' I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

"Suffice It to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there's only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love."

while surfing net i found this article that impressed me so much that i like to share with all

Yup.All such activities are encouraged.Do express yourself. No need to think whether you are right or wrong. If corrected don't feel hurt let the ego melt. If criticized understand from the criticism where it is directed.Nice work Monica. just take care that the material is not copyrighted & if so give credit & re edit.Blessings.